Department Of Cultural Affairs Announces Theme And Lead Curatorial Team And Committee For Second Iteration Of CURRENT:LA Public Art Triennial

Presented by the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA), the CURRENT:LA public art triennial showcases temporary public art projects and public programs activating every Council District in the City of Los Angeles. DCA announced the theme and curatorial team today for the second iteration of the public art triennial that will be presented next fall. CURRENT:LA Food will be the triennial's second iteration following a highly successful inaugural launch, CURRENT:LA Water, presented in the summer of 2016.

The CURRENT:LA concept was developed and produced by DCA's Public Art Division and is the City's first ongoing, citywide temporary public art initiative. Each CURRENT:LA presentation focuses on a public issue that affects Los Angeles and other global cities around the world and utilizes a strategic set of relevant public spaces to present contemporary public art to generate civil discourse around the selected global issue.

Exploring the City's diversity and relationship to food in all its forms, CURRENT:LA Food will showcase approximately 15 temporary public art projects and related public programs to be later announced over the course of one month in the fall of 2019. Topics for the thematic presentation include: eliminating food deserts, supporting urban agriculture, improving distribution systems, and strengthening food policy. The theme of food is particularly relevant for the City with the development of issues and challenges as food diversity and access; inequity and justice; waste and recycling; and public health and community building.

CURRENT:LA Food will place art in public spaces throughout Los Angeles along its public transportation infrastructure, including rail and bus lines. Angelenos and visitors will be invited to experience Los Angeles's public transportation options as they engage with food-related projects throughout the city.

"Los Angeles is a global cultural capital - a place where the world comes to showcase creative excellence and artistic diversity," said Mayor Eric Garcetti. "The latest iteration of CURRENT:LA builds on this tradition and makes art accessible by bringing world-class exhibits to the public spaces that touch the lives of all Angelenos."

CURRENT:LA Food will be organized by a lead curatorial team from the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA) represented by Elsa Longhauser (Executive Director, ICA LA), Jamillah James (Curator, ICA LA), and Asuka Hisa (Director of Learning and Engagement, ICA LA), with support from a committee that includes Lauren Mackler (independent curator and Founder of Public Fiction), Diana Nawi (independent curator), and Marco Rios (artist and Curator at the Luckman Gallery, California State University, Los Angeles) as curatorial advisors.

"We are proud to work with these curators. Their work is relevant, experimental, and accessible. Together they represent a broad range of intellectual energy, voices, and perspectives," said Danielle Brazell, General Manager of the Department of Cultural Affairs. "I am confident they will motivate and inspire artists to realize our goal of creating art experiences with CURRENT:LA that will engage our city's residents and visitors."

DCA also announced the release of the Evaluation Final Report for CURRENT:LA Water detailing the previous iteration's ambitious scope. That activation was the result of Los Angeles being selected as one of four cities to receive up to $1 million as part of the Bloomberg Philanthropies Public Art Challenge, a program aimed at supporting temporary public art projects that celebrate creativity, enhance urban identity, encourage public-private partnerships, and drive economic development. DCA produced an Executive Summary of the full report containing infographics and images that can be downloaded here.

"It is important for us as a City Department to evaluate the success of our programs. We were tasked with answering the question whether or not public art can contribute to the creation of social capital and civil discourse around a critical resource. The CURRENT:LA Water evaluation will serve as an effective feedback loop that provides a deeper inquiry about the relationship between public art and the city," said Felicia Filer, DCA's Public Art Division Director.

The study's findings demonstrate how public art contributes to the creation of social capital and civil discourse for the city around the critical resource of water. CURRENT:LA Water included 16 different sites spread across all 15 City Council Districts, extending 58 miles, north to south, and 29 miles, west to east, along the LA River and the city's other waterways. In addition to the artworks themselves, CURRENT:LA encompassed 163 official "CURRENT" events and 60 non-official "Con-CURRENT" events.

CURRENT:LA consists of temporary art projects and public programs liberated from the myriad limitations that largely define typical, traditional, and permanent public art commissioned by the City of Los Angeles - locations, construction schedules, material durability, and site parameters, as well as funding use restrictions that require asset creation and permanence. Through CURRENT:LA, DCA supports a new paradigm for a civic public art engagement throughout Los Angeles and beyond.

Felicia Filer will participate on a panel entitled "Funding, Innovating and Evaluating" at the Americans for the Arts annual conference in Denver, Colorado on Friday, June 15 to detail the outcomes of the CURRENT:LA Water Public Art Triennial.

For more information about CURRENT:LA, please visit: http://www.currentla.org/

As a leading, progressive arts and cultural agency, DCA empowers Los Angeles's vibrant communities by supporting and providing access to quality visual, literary, musical, performing, and educational arts programming; managing vital cultural centers; preserving historic sites; creating public art; and funding services provided by arts organizations and individual artists.

Formed in 1925, DCA promotes arts and culture as a way to ignite a powerful dialogue, engage LA's residents and visitors, and ensure LA's varied cultures are recognized, acknowledged, and experienced. DCA's mission is to strengthen the quality of life in Los Angeles by stimulating and supporting arts and cultural activities, ensuring public access to the arts for residents and visitors alike.

DCA advances the social and economic impact of arts and culture through grant-making, public art, community arts, and strategic marketing and development. DCA creates and supports arts programming, maximizing relationships with other city agencies, artists, and arts and cultural nonprofit organizations to provide excellent service in neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles.

For more information, please visit culturela.org or follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/culturela; Instagram @culture_la; and Twitter @culture_la.

The Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA) is a new museum located in Downtown Los Angeles. The ICA LA's revelatory exhibitions of works by International Artists, dynamic public programs, and inclusive community partnerships reflect the diversity of Los Angeles and the world, fostering critique of the familiar and empathy with the different.

Designed by the interdisciplinary practice wHY under the leadership of Kulapat Yantrasast, the museum's 12,700 square-foot facility features 7,500-square-feet of exhibition space, as well as areas for public programs, offices, and special projects.

ICA LA's mission is to support art that sparks the pleasure of discovery and challenges the way we see and experience the world, ourselves, and each other. Founded in 1984 as the Santa Monica Museum of Art (SMMoA), ICA LA builds upon a distinguished history of fostering artistic experimentation with bold curatorial choices, and connecting with various communities via timely, meaningful, and engaging public programs. ICA LA is committed to making contemporary art relevant and accessible for all. Admission is free.

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